Sharing is caring!

Introduction:

Martindale abrasion tester is a versatile capable of multiple abrasion and pilling tests. Abrasion is just one aspect of wear and is the rubbing away of the component fibers and yarns of the fabric. Fabrics are subjected to abrasion during their lifetimes, which may result in wear, deterioration, damage, and a loss of performance. However, abrasion resistance is only one of several factors contributing to wear performance or durability. Abrasion can occur in many ways, including fabric-to-fabric rubbing when sitting fabric to ground abrasion during crawling, and sand being rubbed into the upholstery fabric. It is challenging to correlate conditions of abrasion of textiles in wear or use with a laboratory test. This may explain why many different types of abrasion testing machines, abradants, testing conditions, testing procedures, methods of evaluating abrasion resistance, and interpretation of results.

Objectives:

• To know about fabric abrasion resistance.
• Come to learn different types of abrasion.
• To know about Martindale Abrasion Tester.
• Come to learn how to test abrasion of a fabric by using Martindale Abrasion Tester.

Abrasion may be classified as follow:

1. Flat abrasion- A flat area of material is abraded.
2. Edge abrasion- This kind of abrasion which occurs at collars and folds.
3. Flex abrasion- In this case rubbing is accompanied by flexing and bending.

Methods for testing abrasion resistance:

There are three methods have been widely used over the years:

1. The Martindale Tester.
2. The Taber Abrader Tester.
3. The Accelerator Tester.

In this experiment we will use The Martindale Tester to determine abrasion resistance of woven fabric. Before going to the experiment we must main standard testing temperature.

Standard Testing Temperature:

An atmosphere at the prevailing barometric pressure with a relative humidity of 65% and temperature of 20⁰ C is called standard testing temperature.

Apparatus:

• Martindale Abrasion Tester.
• Fabric swatch.
• Scissor.
• Electrical Balance
• Brush

Specimen preparation:

We have to cut the specimen in a circular shape for the abrasion test. The diameter of the circular shape is 38 mm or 140 mm. Here we also will use silicon carbide paper or woven worsted wool mounted over felt as an abradant. Here we will take 4 pcs samples to take.

Working Procedure:

1. At first, we will place the specimen on the specimen holder. Before placement of the specimen, we have to weight the specimen and note down the weight on our lap report note.
2. Then cycled backward and forwards in a Lissajous motion producing even wear.
3. A force of either 9 or 12 KPa is applied to the top of the specimen to hold it against the abradant. 
4. Now start the machine and observe the counter of abrasion no. Usually, abrasion no. depend on the buyer. Buyer gives the abrasion no. as their requirement. Maximum abrasion no. is used about 50,000 cycles.
5. Here we will observe 1st specimen for 1000 cycles, 2nd specimen for the 2000 cycle, 3rd the for 3000 cycles, and 4th for the 4000 cycles.
6. Then we will weight the specimen again and calculate the weight loss of every specimen.

Calculation:

S/N	Specimen wt. before abrasion(mg)	No. of abrasion cycle	Specimen wt. after abrasion (mg)	Wt. loss	Wear index
1	6550	1000	6495	55	55
2	6610	2000	6545	65	130
3	6560	3000	6470	90	270
4	6490	4000	6395	95	380

Now we will calculate the wear index of the fabric. Here we will show the calculation only for specimen no-01, and the rest should be done in the same way as specimen no-1

Same way, we found:

1. Wear index for 1000 cycle=55
2. Wear index for 2000 cycle= 130
3. Wear index for 3000 cycle= 270
4. Wear index for 4000 cycle= 380

Finally we understood that, if abrasion no is increase, weight loss of fabric is increase. That’s why when we used fabric more, loss of weight of fabric will be more.

Precautions:

1. We have to maintain standard testing temperature.
2. Machine should be check, we start the experiment.
3. Be careful, when cut the specimen.

Conclusion:

From this experiment, we learned about fabric’s abrasion resistance. We also learned the working principle of the Martindale abrasion tester and how to calculate of wear index. We also knew what would happen if we used fabric more times. This experiment will help in our future life. Thanks to our teacher for helping us to do this experiment.

References

1. Booth, J. (2008). Principles of Textile Testing. New Delhi: CBS Publishers & Distributors.
2. Hamby, E. B. (1993). Handbook of Textile Test and Quality Control. New York: Wiley Eastern Limited.
3. HU, J. (n.d.). Fabric Testing. New York: Woodhead Publicatioing Limited.

Sharing is caring!